State: California Confederate flag ban excludes individuals

Associated Press ^ | May 2, 2017 9:12 PM EDT | Don Thompson

[Olog-hai]

California’s ban on displaying the Confederate flag doesn’t apply to individuals even if they are on government property, state officials said this week in settling a free speech lawsuit.

Fresno artist Timothy Desmond sued after his painting depicting the flag was barred from the 2015 Big Fresno Fair. His painting shows Confederate soldiers fighting in the 1864 siege of Atlanta, led by a soldier carrying the battle flag.

California’s 2014 law says the state cannot display or sell the Battle Flag of the Confederacy or any similar image unless it appears in a way that serves an educational or historical purpose. Fair officials used that law to ban Desmond’s painting a year later, but they let him display the painting during the 2016 fair.

The settlement signed by the state attorney general’s office on Monday says that the ban applies only to the state government and not to private individuals. Individuals are still free to carry, display or sell the flag on private or government property. …

[eyeamok]

To be consistent shouldn’t they also BAN the Political Party that made up the Confederates and Slave owners of the South???

[Olog-hai]

But then they will turn around and not ban individual identification with same.

[stylin19a]

"The First Amendment is clear: the state may not ban the expression of certain points of view simply because some find them distasteful," Center for Individual Rights President Terry Pell said in a statement Tuesday. "Freedom of speech has costs, whether in the form of hurt feelings of those who are forced to listen or the cost of police necessary to protect against the riots that sometimes result."

what certain points of view can be banned ?

[thinden]

How bout any bans on mex flag on cinco de mayo?

[Olog-hai]

That Pell fellow is suspect. Used to be a civil rights assistant secretary in the Department of Education. Whatever anti-big-government initiatives the CIR used to have would certainly be undermined by him.

[BenLurkin]

How is such “law” even legal?

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

The state of California has ignored the First Amendment for conservatives for decades so why is anyone surprised about the Confederate flag issue?

[Hugin]

I think the state was arguing that certain points of view can be banned, the judge was saying no they can’t. I don’t read that as an implication that some can be.